chemistry

This study aimed to adapt and validate the QuEChERS method for extracting and purifying 19 persistent organic pollutants—11 organochlorine compounds and 8 polychlorinated biphenyls—for GC–MS (CNI mode) analysis in bird liver samples. After extraction with acetonitrile and salt phase separation, the extract was reconstituted in hexane and cleaned using sulfuric acid. Linearity was ≥0.9, and precis…

Scientific Reports, Published online: 15 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41598-026-47290-3 Chemical composition of essential oil from Lavandula dentata L. to control citrus aphids selectively

Researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a computation-guided strategy to produce urea more efficiently from carbon dioxide and nitrate. By combining large language models, density functional theory calculations and experiments, the approach identified a cadmium-modified iron oxide catalyst that maintains high urea selectivity at practical current densities. Urea…

Researchers at the University of Birmingham have developed a new low-temperature approach to hydrogen production that could make the clean fuel cheaper and more practical to generate. The technique could be used both in large centralized facilities and in smaller local systems that take advantage of waste heat from major industrial operations. Hydrogen is the […]

As our world’s population grows, so does the demand for ammonia—a key ingredient in fertilizer. The International Renewable Energy Agency estimates that ammonia production must quadruple by 2050 to feed the increase in global population. The current gold standard process for producing ammonia is energy-intensive and a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions. Invented […]

A cheap crystal of four common elements produces clean hydrogen from water at temperatures hundreds of degrees lower than older methods need.

Nature Communications, Published online: 13 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-74387-0 Okara, a major by-product of soybean processing, is generated at an estimated 140 million tonnes annually, with landfill disposal contributing to pollution and the loss of valuable organic resources. Conventional aerobic composting is land-intensive, slow, and associated with substantial greenhouse gas emissions…

Nature Communications, Published online: 13 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-74224-4 The design and synthesis of molecules featuring both boron and silicon moieties hold significant promise for delivering unique reactivity patterns and material properties. Herein, the authors report a titaniumcatalyzed selective hydroboration of the C(sp3)–Si bonds in silacyclobutanes for the synthesis of boryl-…

Nature Communications, Published online: 13 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-74101-0 Predicting transition states of chemical reactions is demanding. A generative flow model in distance geometry space, dubbed TS-DFM, is proposed, achieving higher structural accuracy and better generalizability than Cartesian-based approaches.

Nature Communications, Published online: 13 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-74340-1 Lithium metal batteries face challenges with dendritic growth. Here, authors employ in situ TEM to reveal how specific electrolyte anions dictate lithium nucleation and interphase architecture, establishing design principles for suppressing dendrites and enabling stable lithium deposition.

A team of researchers in South Korea has developed a new catalyst that can repair itself after damage, potentially solving one of the biggest problems facing hydrogen energy technologies. The breakthrough could help improve the durability of hydrogen fuel cells and water electrolyzers, two technologies that are expected to play an important role in the […] The post Scientists create a self-healin…

Nature Chemistry, Published online: 12 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41557-026-02148-z N-aryl pyrazole is a prevalent motif among pharmaceuticals across various therapeutic areas but can be challenging to synthesize due to the high similarity of the two nitrogen atoms. Now it has been shown that the use of copper catalysis and arynes provides a switchable protocol to access both regioisomers.

Mandelate racemase (MR) catalyzes the Mg 2+ -dependent interconversion of ( R )- and ( S )-mandelate and has been employed as a model enzyme to demonstrate that an enzyme catalyzing the deprotonation of a carbon acid substrate may be inhibited by boronic acids. We report a detailed structure–activity-based study of the ability of various boronic acid derivatives to competitively inhibit MR. 2-Nap…

The FDA will allow bemotrizinol in sunscreen. The chemical is long-lasting and defends against solar radiation that ages skin.

Researchers used machine learning to help predict chemical signatures for over 1 billion possible fentanyls, including variants never seen before.

A very recent experimental study [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 123 (10) e2524790123] demonstrated that non-functionalized graphene (Gr) supported on silicon(111) catalyzed the decomposition of small sulfur-containing compounds under ultra-high vacuum. Accompanying density functional theory (DFT) calculations identify grain boundary defects (GBDs) and interfacial defects as the active sites. Func…

Introduction: Apoptosis resistance in non-small cell lung cancer is frequently sustained by pro-survival Bcl-2 family proteins such as Mcl-1, motivating the search for new Mcl-1 inhibitors from natural products, including diterpenoids from Rabdosia serra . Materials and Methods: An integrated in silico approach was applied to evaluate R. serra diterpenoids as putative Mcl-1 (PDB: 6QFQ) inhibitors…

Synthesis and chemical/electrochemical properties of a conformationally constrained 1,5-dithiocane -3,7-dithiatricyclo[6.4.0.0 2,10 .0 9,11 ]dodecane ( norDTCO) is described. Density function theory (DFT) was used to calculate the structures of the neutral norDTCO , the radical cation norDTCO +● , and the dication norDTCO 2+ to investigate the importance of orbital orientations in the oxidation m…